PortalBorderlands: The Girlfriend
by iammemyself
Summary: Having a girlfriend is REALLY hard, but it's also way more awesome than he'd thought it was going to be. This story is NOT CRACK. It's a serious Claptrap X GLaDOS story. For real.
1. Part One

**Portal/Borderlands: The Girlfriend**

 **Characters: Claptrap, GLaDOS [ClapDOS]**

 **Synopsis: Having a girlfriend is REALLY hard, but it's also way more awesome than he'd thought it was going to be.**

* * *

 **Part One.**

 **Synopsis: He wants to touch her** ** _so bad_** **but she is just not having it.**

* * *

So, Claptrap had this girlfriend.

That, right there, was a miracle in and of itself. He was still a little confused about that.

One of the things about his girlfriend – whew. Still getting used to saying that, even to himself – was that she was _super hot_. Now, Claptrap thought that about pretty much _every_ girl he saw, but when he said _this_ girl was the _prettiest_ girl he'd ever seen, he actually did mean it. She had a _lot_ of things in her favour there. For one thing, there was only one of her. Back on Pandora, there were like a _million_ of each kind of robot. Line up a whole bunch of a product line and it'd be _real_ hard to tell them apart from each other. Which they got really insulted about, and that was _super_ unfair. But none of that with GLaDOS. Nah, there was just the one of her. She also seemed to have been designed _completely_ with the aesthetic in mind, which was a nice change from the constant blocky chassis from back home. She was just one big set of curves. It was very sexy.

The other _other_ thing about her was that she was… well, she was big. Claptrap had seen big robots before, obviously, but they were _usually_ only that size because they had so many guns on 'em. GLaDOS did not have _any_ guns on her; she just happened to be a large robot. Which was great! He was _all_ about that. There was just _one_ problem.

What was the _point_ of having a giant, super hot robot for a girlfriend if you weren't allowed to _touch_ her?

Ohhh, she'd made that _super_ clear. Because he'd asked before, like, lots of times, and he was gonna ask lots of times more. That made him look like a huge jerk, and he _knew_ that, but thing was some girls really did just wanna be convinced about stuff. And he always got the impression GLaDOS was just _waiting_ for him to say the right thing. Just _waiting_ for him to come up with that _thing_ that would change her mind. It was kinda like a test, and if there was _one_ thing he knew about her _for sure_ it was that she _really_ liked her tests. Besides. She never got _angry_ with him for asking. She would just tell him the answer was no and then he'd give up until the next time he thought of some new way to put it. He was running out of ideas on that front, though.

GLaDOS was very into working pretty much _constantly_ (she probably even did it while she was asleep) but she didn't seem to have a problem with him hanging out with her and just talking. She didn't _answer_ him that often, but he knew she was _listening_ , and that was good enough for him! One day he was behind her and just looking up at where she was plugged into the ceiling and wondering what life was like when you couldn't so much as leave the room. She _seemed_ content with it, but with her you just never really knew.

"You ever wonder what you're doing up there?" he asked, not really expecting an answer, but she said,

"It was expensive to build both robots and computers back then."

Claptrap tapped one hand under his optic. "Nah. That _can't_ be it."

She actually turned around to look at him. "What is it, then."

Well, crap. He hadn't thought that through yet! "Did uh… did Aperture ever actually try to _sell_ any of the stuff you're testing?"

"We used to. But that was stopped a while before I was made."

"Why?"

She sort of shrugged. "Everything that comes out of here is, well… deadly. Humans frown on that sort of thing."

That still made zero sense to him, since back on Pandora the general idea was if it wasn't deadly, it wasn't worth thinking about. " _Everything_ you make here is deadly?"

"Pretty much."

"And they… expected you _not_ to be?"

She laughed, which always meant he was doing _very_ well. "They did and they were very, _very_ wrong."

"Okay, so, _normally_ when a company decides to build a robot they kinda, y'know, intend on mass producing 'em. Were they ever gonna…" Geez. It felt so _wrong_ to think of her like that. She was _way_ too special to be part of a _product line_. "Y'know. _Market_ you?"

"They wanted to. But they never had any idea what to _do_ with any of the things they created. Aperture's main goal throughout its history was to sell things to the American military. And you might imagine that the American military would have _loved_ to have acquired such an advanced AI as myself. I could have run the entire thing all on my own." She looked back at the monitor she'd been doing whatever on. He had no idea and hadn't felt like asking. But military AI was something Claptrap _did_ understand. The principle, anyway.

"So… why are you still here?"

"Because the military was looking to fill a contract for an innovation that would prevent gasoline from freezing. The engineers, in their inimitable wisdom, decided to tell the military that was all I had the ability to do."

"Wait. What?" She'd totally lost him now. "Are you telling me the guys who worked here had a living genius supercomputer on their hands and they just went around trying to shoehorn you into random military contracts?"

"That was where Black Mesa was getting all their funding from. So yes. It was really less in the interest of finding something intelligent to do with me, and more about fighting over the available contracts."

"So _that's_ why you're up there," Claptrap said.

"What?" She turned back around to look at him, and he reversed a little so she didn't have to curl up so much to do it.

"Well, what else do you do with something you don't know what to do with that you kinda regret owning? You put it somewhere you don't gotta look at it and nobody will ever touch it."

She didn't say anything, just kept _staring_ at him, and it was really making him kinda uncomfy. He lifted up his hands a little helplessly. "Maybe it's different here, but back on Pandora, if you're making AI or a robot you market the _hell_ out of it. They're expensive! They require a lotta manpower! And that's on _top_ of the years and years of bug fixes and updates. _Nobody_ builds a robot without knowing _exactly_ how they're gonna market it. Unless they're planning on scrapping it and starting over, that is."

"Well," GLaDOS said, looking away, and he _might've_ been mistaken but she sounded a little _distant_ suddenly, "it seems you found the exception."

Exception? What except – ohhhhhh. Yikes. Somehow in the midst of his explanation he'd forgotten they were talking about _her_. Oh man. He had to fix this.

"Hey, it's not _all_ bad," he said, wondering if he'd doomed himself yet again. Seemed like it. "I mean… would you rather be me?"

"God, no," GLaDOS answered in something approaching disgust, which was all right. "I can't think of anything I'd want _less_."

"Exactly, right? Being me _sucks_. Nobody'll _ever_ put a hand on _you_ that you don't want there. People're always kicking me, or throwing stuff at me, or putting stuff _on_ me. Maybe you're kinda down here where no one was ever supposed to see you, but… being on the other side isn't that great."

"So that begs the question," GLaDOS said, and to his complete surprise he realised she'd _levelled_ herself with him. She'd never done _that_ before! "What's in the middle?"

"I… I don't know," he said, finding it hard to talk suddenly. "I guess it'd have to be… uh… whatever robots are when there're no humans around."

 _Man_ she was close. He could feel the heat coming off her. And it wasn't _unpleasant_ – in fact, it was kinda comforting – but for some reason he hadn't _expected_ that. As though he'd thought she was gonna be as cold on the inside as she was on the outside. Well, _seemed_ to be. She wasn't really _that bad_ , she was just… the thing she was _supposed_ to be. Lofty. Out of reach.

And now… she wasn't. Now she was _in_ reach. And he'd been waiting for this for a _really_ long time but _now_ he didn't know _what_ to do. Oh, sure, he'd had a lot of thoughts about what he'd do when he got to this moment, but all of them had just _disappeared_ from his RAM all of a sudden. And he didn't even really know what those things had _been_ , but he _did_ know they'd all been wrong.

He almost didn't wanna touch her at _all_ anymore. He felt kinda like… he shouldn't. Like she was supposed to stay up there and be perfect, and he was supposed to stay down here and be a fail. That was just… how it was.

But that was why she was right there in the _first_ place. Because… because she wanted to meet him in the middle. She didn't know what that _was_ , and _he_ sure didn't, but it wasn't like anyone else was gonna roll up and _give_ them that answer. GLaDOS was _really_ good at finding _those_ , but this one she couldn't do by herself. So he had to help her. If _he_ wanted to know what the middle was, anyway.

And he did. Because _she_ was there, and even though he _really_ didn't like this situation or having to actually _do_ something that was scaring the crap out of him all of a sudden, he _did_ really like _her._ And she wasn't gonna wait there all day. He'd been waiting for the test, and here it was. She was giving him his chance and he had to decide what the right thing to do with it was.

The hardest part about it all was that she was looking _right at him_ , and he was pretty sure he was overheating a little because this was stressing him out so much (which was _really_ embarrassing). Her _eye_ was the size of his entire freaking body! Okay. The _assembly_ for it was. But still. It counted. It was still unnerving the crap out of him. And the smell of her from this close was _really_ distracting. He wasn't really sure what it was she smelled _like_ , other than that it was kind of… clean. Everyone on Pandora was usually pretty dirty so they were always all sweaty and stuff, but there wasn't any dirt here. She also smelled kinda rusty, and he'd been wondering for a while how an indoor robot even _got_ rust on her, but it wasn't too bad. And it was easy to fix that, anyways. If she ever _really_ let him touch her, he knew how to take care of it.

Which brought him back to the fact that she kinda _was_ letting him right now, and he wasn't doing it. _What's it gonna be, Claptrap_ , he asked himself. _You gonna do this thing or what_?

He decided to just… put his hand very softly along the side of her core, so that his thumb was against the front, at about the position her lens was at. And that was it. That was all he did. That was all he _wanted_ to do. And it was… it was really nice, actually. The vibration from her brain went up his arm a little bit, and it kinda made him feel like she was more alive than he would ever be. He could _hear_ her mind going at it, too, and she seemed to be more active at idle than he was when he was thinking really hard. Man. No _wonder_ she hadn't let him touch her. He shouldn't really be doing it. She could do _so_ much better. He felt really ashamed, suddenly, of all the things he'd imagined doing to her before now. It wasn't really his _fault_ and if there'd been a way to get rid of the ridiculous urge he had to interface with almost every pretty girl he saw, he would've gotten _right_ on that. And he did his best not to, or to keep it to himself, at least, but he still felt like… he hadn't _done_ enough. Like thinking of her that way made him the _worst_ person in the world.

It was times like this that Claptrap felt really terrible about the reason he was even here in the first place, which was one hundred percent because the _second_ he'd seen her he'd started thinking about all the things he could do with a robot like _that_. It was a really awful way to think about someone and he _knew_ that. But sometimes he just… went ahead and did it. Because what did it matter? He usually never saw the girl again _anyway_! What did it _matter_ if he had some not-so-nice thoughts about – okay, okay. It _did_ matter, even if it was easier to try and pretend it didn't sometimes. But he'd spent so much time thinking about stuff like that because he'd thought it was the most he'd ever get, and now there was GLaDOS. Who was _way more_ than his _wildest_ imagination. Fooling around with her was always totally awesome but other than that? He had _no idea_ how to treat her. 'Right' was the _obvious_ answer, but what _was_ that? And what about how _she_ was supposed to treat _him_? What was _that_ supposed to be? All of this was so _hard._ And he'd only really just started it. _She_ wasn't much help, either. He was supposed to lead the way and all that, since he was the guy and whatever, but some _hints_ would've been nice. Some kinda _real_ indications he wasn't _totally_ messing all of this up. He _did_ have his hand on her right now, but all this nervousness was kinda ruining it. He didn't even know if she was fine with what he was doing, because she hadn't _said_ or _done_ anything! She was just _staring_ at him all _motionless_ and the longer he stood there like that, the more it felt like he was doing something horribly wrong.

He'd only had his hand there for about one minute but it _felt_ like he'd had it there for _hours_. He brought it back down and GLaDOS moved away, but not that far and not really that _fast_ , either. In fact, she seemed kinda… _satisfied._ So… had she not minded that? Had she been cool with it? Had she… had she _liked_ it?

God, she was so confusing. But also really amazing at the same time. Which was equal parts suckage and total awesome. She was like a puzzle with about eighty solutions, but every single one of them was also very, very wrong.

"How are you at chess," GLaDOS asked, and he was still a little caught up in all those thoughts having one entire hand on her had brought up so he didn't process what she'd said for a good thirty seconds.

"Uh… terrible," he answered. He didn't even know where his chess module _was_. "I can do checkers."

"Checkers it is," she said, and from who _knew_ where produced a really nice black-and-white board that might've been made of glass. He really wasn't much better at checkers than he was at chess, so he actually stopped talking in order to play. It took him like five minutes to figure out what he was supposed to do, which looked even worse than usual considering GLaDOS took like half a second to make all _her_ moves. Either she was _super_ good at this game or he sucked worse than he thought he did. Or both. Probably both. It was kinda making him feel bad, actually, since someone as smart as her should probably be playing with someone with a _much_ better brain than his, and after he'd spectacularly lost his eighth game in a row he said to himself,

"What _do_ you see in me, anyway."

He really hadn't meant her to hear, but she had, of course, because she was just _that_ awesome, and it made her laugh a little bit. He looked up at her, which she pretended not to notice – he was _pretty_ sure she was pretending, anyway – and he tapped his left hand against that corner of the board.

"You're not gonna tell me, are you."

"That wouldn't be very much fun, now would it?" she said, with a really delightful false innocence. _Gosh_ she got pretty cute, sometimes.

" _Everything's_ fun with you, babe."

He hadn't even realised what he'd said until she shook her core and told him, "Oh, stop that," but thing was he really did mean it. And besides. He was _pretty_ sure she didn't _actually_ want him to stop. Sometimes she said something but meant the total opposite. Which got really confusing. He was figuring it out, though.

Eventually she said that was it because she had to go to sleep, and he was a little sad about it, but not really because of her. Night was a sad and lonely time, that was all. Maybe one day she'd let him stick around, though. Maybe.

She was already lying down by the time he got to the hallway, but she still _sounded_ awake so he called back, "GLaDOS?"

"Yes."

"I'd uh…" He was suddenly regretting this. "I'd really like to hug you one day."

When she didn't say anything, he turned around so he could see her. She was just… looking at him. She hadn't really gotten up. She'd just tilted her core back enough that she could focus on him, and it made him wonder what life was like when your eye wasn't stuck in one place like his. But now wasn't the time for that! Now was the time to wonder if he'd pissed her off by saying he wanted to touch her again _already_. It had only been like _three hours_. But he couldn't help it! She was just so big and pretty and she smelled so nice and…

"I'd like you to do that one day," GLaDOS said softly, and Claptrap was so shocked he almost believed his audio processing unit had just totally remixed what she'd _actually_ said into what he wanted to hear. But no. No, she'd _actually said that._

Wow. So that meant he was actually doing this thing _right!_ Amazing! "You have a good night, babe," he said, waving to her, and she just told him goodnight so quietly he barely heard it. But that was fine. It was progress! And he had _never_ expected to make so _much_ of it.

He didn't think he'd feel _that_ sad and lonely tonight. Besides! She was usually only out for about six hours. That wasn't _that_ long! Well, he'd have to leave her alone so she could work, probably, but if he was nice about it maybe she'd play checkers with him again. Or something. He wasn't picky. He just had to remember to take it easy with all of this. She seemed to be taking her time to figure out what she wanted, exactly, and honestly? He kinda was too.

The only thing to do about _that_ was to keep working out how to meet her in the middle about stuff. And that? _That_ he was getting the hang of.

* * *

 **Author's note**

 **Putting this mostly because whenever I say the robots can smell stuff someone asks me how that's possible: Claptrap, GLaDOS, and Wheatley all mention they can smell. I don't know why someone decided that was necessary or where their olfactory units are. They just can.**


	2. Part Two

**Part Two.**

 **Synopsis: Maybe she'll let him hug her this time. He's** ** _got_** **a good reason…**

Sometimes GLaDOS got sad.

Now, Claptrap got sad _all the time._ Like, constantly. It was like… a weird feature or something. But _he_ had _nothing_ on _her_. When _he_ got sad, he just cried for a while and then he was okay. Mostly. But GLaDOS didn't do that. She just kinda… pretended she wasn't sad. It was _so easy_ to tell she was, though. She didn't get mad at him more often, or tell him to talk less, or really _change_ all that much. But you could just _feel_ it when she got sad. And it was _everywhere_ in the facility, because _she_ was everywhere, and really, it was kinda a downer. He wasn't gonna _complain_ about it. That would be the _total_ wrong thing to do. But he really wished he could just _ask_ her what was wrong and that she would just _tell_ him. Because he knew if he did, she wouldn't, and _then_ what. _Then_ what did he do? For now, he was just doing his best to pretend along with her. He wasn't sure if he was _succeeding_ , but he was trying. Kinda summed up their relationship, to be honest.

This time, though, was _really_ bad. She was kinda making _him_ sad just to be near her, and that sucked. He really, _really_ needed to do something about it before _he_ started getting all upset, because when _that_ happened he _really_ screwed things up. So one afternoon where he thought he could handle it okay and also she hadn't really said anything to him since yesterday or the day before, he said, "Babe, you wanna… tell me what's going on?"

The way she looked at him kinda suggested she'd forgotten he was even there. Which was typical. Not with her, just in general. He didn't have much hope of her actually _answering_ the question, because she usually didn't, so she _really_ took him by surprise when she said, "I had a friend once."

Oh. Okay. Uh… what did he do _now?_ He'd totally expected her to just _ignore_ him. "What… happened to them?"

"I sent her away," GLaDOS said. "I wasn't very good to her."

"Why not?"

She didn't answer for long enough that it made him anxious. Come to think of it, that was kinda a weird question to ask somebody. Especially somebody you didn't really know that well. He'd _like_ to know her better, she was just so hard to talk to sometimes. 'cause she did stuff like this. Mentioned something and then refused to talk about it. Why _do_ that if you didn't wanna talk about it? Finally she said, without looking at him,

"It's a long story."

And that was bad news why? "I got nothin' but time!"

That was when the _staring_ started and he had to try very hard not to back away from her. He wasn't sure where he was planning on _going_ , exactly, but someplace very far away would be good. Back to Pandora probably wasn't even far enough. It really _sucked_ when she did this.

Something that was really tough about being her boyfriend was that he could never tell what she was thinking. He, like most of his product line – and most people on Pandora in general – was pretty open with his thoughts. Sometimes to the point of actually voicing every single one of them! But GLaDOS… not only did she _not_ do that, she also didn't _gesture_. Probably because she didn't have arms. But that wasn't the point. The _point_ was that she was staring at him, and thinking, and he had no idea if they were bad thoughts or good ones. When she did this scrutinising thing he really did start to wonder if having a brain that big was worth it. Sure, it made you smarter, but if being smarter meant you had to think about every decision a zillion times, what was the point?

"You know what," she said finally, long after he'd given up hope of an actual _answer_ this time, "all right. Let's do it."

"Do… do what."

"I'm going to tell you the story."

Story? What story? Oh, right. The reason she'd sent the friend away she hadn't been nice to. It was a little weird that she'd need to tell a _story_ to explain that, but hey. He had nothing better to do.

"And Claptrap."

"Yeah?"

"I know your mind is prone to wandering, but do your best to pay attention. I only want to go over it once."

Oof. Sounded like this story was made of pure suckage. But okay. He would do his absolute best! though what that happened to be today was yet to be known. "You got it, babe."

It wasn't even that hard to pay attention, though, because the story was just plain _wild_. And a little confusing, since she kept mentioning things he didn't know anything about. Like what the heck was an Intelligence Dampening Sphere? For a minute he thought it must have been some sort of pill you took, like the kind that made parties better, but it turned out to be some kind of robot? A stupid robot that was also kinda smart? There was also something about neurotoxin, and a cake dispensary, and a turkey leg hanging on a rope from the ceiling, and he was having trouble following not because he wasn't paying attention, but because none of it made any _sense_! _Especially_ not the gun that shot holes! _Without_ using bullets! What sort of gun did _that_? Rockets, yes. Acid, yes. Swords? Heck yeah! But _holes_?

He was doing his best to not interrupt, he really was, but then she got to the part where the stupid-but-smart robot moved her into a potato, which really did sound like torture right there, and _then_ she said after the dumbass smashed her into a bottomless pit a _bird_ started _eating_ her. Which was just the last straw. Why would a _bird_ be noshing on a _computer_?

Oh. Oh, right. Wasn't there some _other_ kind of potato? It was something to do with French fries… "Wait! Wait. Are you talking about an _actual_ potato? Like, the vegetable?"

"Is there another kind?"

"Well, sorta," Claptrap said. "On Pandora you call a really crappy computer a potato. Y'know. 'cause it can't _do_ anything. Just sorta sits there."

GLaDOS looked over at the wall.

"In that case," she said solemnly, "I seem to be the most optimised piece of software in existence."

Damn. What a woman.

The story didn't get any clearer after that, though. There were a bunch of weird gels, and some hilarious dude that GLaDOS seemed particularly fond of, for some reason, and to top it all off she'd almost ended up on the moon. "Is he still up there?" Claptrap asked, having lost track of where the IDS had ended up. She nodded once.

"As far as I know. Unless some passing aliens decided to pick him up, which would be…" She was looking up at the ceiling suddenly, and Claptrap checked it out himself but there was nothing there. Other than the ceiling. "Oh."

"Huh?" Claptrap asked, feeling like he'd missed something. Was she looking _through_ the ceiling?

" _That_ is a story for another time."

She had a story about _aliens_? Well, okay. So did he. _Lots_ of 'em. Also, maybe her story was just about him, since he was kinda an alien at the moment. Did robots count as aliens? Especially robots that were kinda just like variations on the robots they already had? When GLaDOS talked about computer stuff, he understood her just fine. Was Earth a parallel version of Pandora? Or was Pandora a parallel version of Earth! Did that mean there were Vaults here too? Wait. She had said Earth was the only inhabited planet in this solar system. On Pandora even the _moon_ was inhabited, so –

"Anyway," GLaDOS was saying. "There you have it."

Have… what? He'd forgotten what they'd been talking about.

"It's been one year to that day."

To the day of… darn it! _That_ sure made him look good. She'd actually told him something for once and he already didn't remember what the _point_ of it had been.

"She's probably dead by now," GLaDOS said, subdued enough it kinda worried him. "There's not much out there and this place isn't exactly _accessible_."

Oh _right!_ Her _friend!_ Phew. He thanked his lucky stars for the fact that she'd kept talking. "I don't know, babe. If there's one thing I know about humans, it's that they're _super_ resilient."

"The ones here really aren't."

Well, he didn't actually _know_ any of them, so maybe she was right on that one. Meant he'd almost run out of things to say about this, though. "Well, if she's alive and she ever comes back, I think you'll get along great!" Claptrap declared. " _I_ think you're a _great_ friend."

She looked at him with her optic narrowed a little bit. She didn't believe him, huh. Probably she'd figured out already that his opinion wasn't worth that much. In his defense, he wasn't really programmed to dispense advice! "Hey. Did you want a hug?"

She sighed in exasperation and turned away from him. "Not _now_ , Claptrap."

What? What had he done _now?_ Ohhhhhh. Right. He'd been bugging her about that. "Not for me!" he protested. "For you! It's just something you do to help someone feel better!"

"That doesn't even make any _sense_ ," GLaDOS snapped. "What in the world is that even going to _achieve_?"

"It was just a suggestion! Yeesh. I'm just trying to help. Okay, sure! I don't know how! But hey! I _am_ trying!"

"That's true," GLaDOS said after a moment. "All right. I suppose it can't make things _worse_. What do I have to do, exactly?"

Wait, what? She _wanted_ him to now? He looked her up and down real quick. Huh. How _was_ he gonna hug her? She was just _way too big_. The only part of her he could even _reach_ was her core, so… that was gonna have to do. "Just uh… just come down here enough that I can do it over your eye."

So she did that, only she wasn't far enough down and he was gonna have to give himself the extra few inches and hope he was able to keep from leaning on her. He didn't want to get his wheel on her face, but she _wasn't_ giving him a lot to work with. He didn't know if she was being difficult or if she just thought he was taller than he actually was. Probably both. Then he imagined what taking a deep breath might sound like and just went for it.

It was just as nice as touching her had been, but times like _thirty_. Having his arms full of beautiful warm supercomputer was _amazing_. He was _such_ a lucky guy. Oh, but wait! This _wasn't_ him getting lucky. This was him _helping_. So he did his best to concentrate on helpful thoughts. It was hard, but he was doing it.

She didn't _have_ to be sad about her friend! She'd come back one day! Well, none of _his_ friends ever had, but she was so much _better_ than him that of course _her_ friend would. She'd come back and then GLaDOS would have her friend, and maybe Claptrap could get a new friend too! and everything would be fine and okay because _friends!_

It wasn't hard to tell when she wanted him to let go, even though _he_ really didn't want to. He _never_ got to hug anybody. Probably because they were worried he'd start getting a little frisky on them, which he did, sometimes, but there wasn't much he could do about _that_. And it wasn't like anyone was volunteering to _fix_ that little problem.

"I didn't expect that to help," GLaDOS said after a moment. "And you know what?"

It totally hadn't.

"It did," she answered herself, instantly skyrocketing his mood to wonderful heights. "I'm not sure _why_ , but… it did."

It was just about the worst time _ever_ for him to find that hilarious, and it was also too late for him to do much more than turn around and do his best to pretend he hadn't found it funny. Which probably wasn't going to work. Not only was GLaDOS _not_ deaf, she was definitely not stupid.

"Are you laughing because I said 'but'," GLaDOS said, and even though he _definitely_ was now he still said, "No," as clearly as possible. Which was… not at all, because he was doing a _really_ bad job of not laughing.

"Are you three years old?"

"I could be," Claptrap said, and she moved back enough that he guessed she hadn't expected that answer. "It's really hard to tell once you've been reset a few dozen times! And anyway! It was funny!"

"No, it wasn't."

"Yeah! It was!"

"It really wasn't."

"A little bit?"

"Maybe a little bit."

He wouldn't ask for more than that! Especially since that could _totally_ have gone in a different direction. Sometimes girls just kept getting mad about stuff like that.

"Now," GLaDOS said, "if you don't mind shutting up for a while, I have a lot to think about."

It was kinda ironic for her to say that, considering _she'd_ been doing all the talking. He wasn't gonna bring that up, though. She'd let him hug her and he wasn't gonna push it any farther than that. "Very well! I shall beat it for now. But have no fear, because – " He cut himself off because she had looked away from him suddenly, and he was pretty sure he knew _exactly_ why.

"You're not allowed to laugh! You said it wasn't funny, remember!"

"It isn't," she said, very unconvincingly.

"Suuuuure it's not. That's why you totally aren't trying not to laugh because I said 'but' just now."

"You're always a little ridiculous, but you're being particularly so right now."

"That's okay!" Claptrap said. "I'd be _so bored_ if everything was all serious all the time. It wouldn't be any fun!"

"Fun," GLaDOS echoed, in a distant kinda way, and when Claptrap looked up at her she'd turned away from him a little.

"Yeah. Fun. What, you never heard of it? They didn't teach you that during 'Mad Science for Lady Robots?'"

"No," she said, as though she'd actually taken the question seriously, which… she did that sometimes. And when she started doing _that_ , she was _definitely_ not in the mood to have him around. Before he'd really gotten to the exit he heard her move and then she said, "Where are you going?"

"Uh…" Where _was_ he going? Oh, right. It wasn't the _where_ that mattered, it was the _why._ "I was just gonna leave you be for a bit. You said you were gonna think, remember?"

"All right," was all she said to that, and it didn't really make him any less confused but that was probably all he was gonna get. "And… Claptrap."

"Yeah?" he said, turning around. Maybe she _didn't_ want him to take off after all? That'd be awesome!

"Thank you for the hug," she told him, and she sounded so serious he was almost concerned. It wasn't _that_ big a deal, was it? "It was nice."

He straightened himself as much as he could. "Anytime, babe! And I mean that _literally_. Anytime. I'm always up for that."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, and he had to say if she decided to be serious about _that_ he would definitely _not_ argue about it.


	3. Part Three

**Part Three.**

 **Synopsis: He probably shouldn't have done that. Too late now…**

Being allowed to hang out in GLaDOS's chamber while she was asleep made him feel a _lot_ better.

She didn't _do_ anything, obviously; she just hung there sleeping. All _he_ was even doing was the same stuff he did while she was awake, like talk about whatever came to mind or fool around on the ECHONet. More of the 'Net, usually. And she told him every day before she went to sleep not to touch her or else, except for the last eight days. She had either decided he'd gotten the hint, or there was _another_ hint he wasn't getting _at all_. Because the only time he'd been allowed to touch her in like _three weeks_ now was had been when they were fooling around. Which was weird! She'd never let him do _that_ before.

The last time had been even _weirder_. Not only had he gotten the usual strange sense of relief from her she seemed to have when they did it, but she also kinda just… sat there and let him hug her after. He didn't even remember _why_ he was doing that. And he didn't wanna ruin this good thing he had going, but still he decided he had to ask,

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

Well, _that_ hadn't told him what was up. "Look, we uh… we don't have to keep doing this. If you don't want to," he'd told her, even though the mere thought of holding himself to that offer was like torture. Seriously! Having _that_ chassis in front of him all the time and _never_ being able to interface with it would have practically been a crime against robotkind!

"Hm?"

"You always seem kinda… _relieved_ that we're done."

"Oh," GLaDOS had said, as though the thought had never occurred to her. Which was wild! "I am. But not because of anything to do with you."

Encouraging! but not helpful. "And… the _reason_ is…"

But then she had moved away and said she was going to sleep, and that had been that. And that had been four days ago.

He really didn't want to wait another week or however long to be able to touch her again. Especially since she hadn't told him _not_ to. Not recently, at least. He didn't wanna take advantage or anything! Really! He just wanted to cuddle her as much as possible! And she didn't even have to be _on_! He wasn't even asking to take up any of her _time_ to do it! He was cool with just doing it while she was asleep! She probably wouldn't even _notice!_

Oh. Oh, wait. That was true. She probably wouldn't. She'd never mentioned the fact that he talked to her at night, so she probably wasn't conscious at all. Not even a little bit. It was really hard to tell with admin bots, since their task lists were more of a twenty-four-seven dealie, but she wasn't the kind of person to keep quiet if he was doing something she didn't like. But she couldn't dislike something she didn't know was happening!

Would that count as being sneaky, though? He already knew asking her direct questions was not the way to get an answer of any kind. He just sorta had to ease into things and wait and see if she told him to stop. Which he wouldn't have to do for this, since she'd be totally asleep and not know about it at all.

Well, what did he have to lose? He was just gonna go for it. She probably wouldn't even get that mad. Probably. She might. Hopefully not mad enough to kick him out, though. He _really_ liked living here. Also, he _really_ liked her. Which was why he just couldn't bear to keep his hands off her! And honestly it would be _weird_ if he _did_ want such a thing! She was so _big_ and so _beautiful_ and it felt _so good_ to just put his arms around her as far as he could reach and just sit there and listen to all the noise her brain made as she went on thinking those smart thoughts of hers. Ohhhh. He shivered. Okay, now he was _really_ gonna do it. He could not go _another second_ without holding her again. It'd be fine. No big deal. It was nothing at all to cuddle your girlfriend while she was sleeping even though she hadn't actually told you it was okay to do that. Probably everyone else did it all the time and he was late to the game. Which… wasn't unusual, actually.

"Okay," he said to himself, looking at her and thinking over how he wanted to do this. It was gonna have to be from the side, since he couldn't really move that much from the front and he could never be sure how long he could stay still for. So he went up to her left side and he very, very carefully put his right arm along the part of her core where the ceramic fit into the rail that let her shift it up and down. Then he stayed very still and listened as hard as he could.

Nothing.

Good! Exactly what he'd been hoping for. When he thought he'd calmed himself down again he very slowly positioned his chassis as close to her as possible, which also went very well, and then he finally (again very slowly!) put his other arm up against the front of her core. He did remember she didn't like having her optic assembly touched _at all_ , so he put his arm up a little higher just in case he stopped paying attention and it slipped. She would _definitely_ be mad if he punched her in the eye, even if it _was_ by mistake.

He was so nervous about the whole thing that he didn't really get to _enjoy_ it for the first ten minutes, but after that? Totally worth it.

He was never gonna feel lonely at night again.

* * *

Every day he waited about twenty minutes to make sure she'd gone to sleep, and then he'd go up to her and put his arms around her real slow. Sometimes he wouldn't talk or watch TV or even do anything, because the feel of her was just so darn nice. He'd just sit there and think about what it must be like to be a construct like her. Though… he never really came to the conclusion it was a _nice_ life. She didn't have any friends and she never really seemed to have _fun_. It seemed like being smart enough to be admin just… sucked. Because then they gave you all this _work_ to do, and if you _didn't_ have any work you just started going stir-crazy! Even if he'd been good at it, Claptrap didn't really like working. It was a lot more fun to just mess around and do what he wanted. But GLaDOS couldn't do that. Well, she could. But not for very long. She had too much work to do.

At times where he was thinking stuff like that, he hugged her a little tighter and wished she'd open up to him a little more. Gosh, he liked her a lot. It sure would be cool to know if doing this was okay or if he was just being a total asshole. Claptrap was a pretty nice guy, compared to everybody _else_ on Pandora, but in a world where everyone was kinda a jerk he was _also_ bound to be a jerk like fifty percent of the time.

He did this every day for a week or two and it always seemed to go fine. He already knew by now when she was waking up by the sound of it – 'cause it was _loud_ – and he _usually_ got off her with plenty of time to spare. But then there was this time he forgot what he was doing because he was watching a movie about a dog that could play basketball, and it was just _so_ _amazing_ that he didn't realise he'd lost track of time until he seemed to have gotten a lot warmer and noisier all of a sudden. _That_ was certainly weird, since he wasn't, like, _thinking_ or anything, and while he was trying to puzzle _that_ out he suddenly remembered just who he was hanging onto.

Ohhhhh s***. Oh s*** s*** s***. How was he gonna explain his way out of _this_? He veeeeeery slowly extracted himself from her core, backed away about three feet, and then… nothing. She didn't do anything. She didn't yell at him, or sigh in annoyance, or even actually _move_. He wasn't sure what to do. Was he in trouble? Was she thinking about how much trouble he was in? Was she gonna kill him? Or, worse, kick him out?

"Good morning," he said, in an attempt to be casual, but considering his voice came out kinda high-pitched it was unlikely he was even one percent convincing. Aw, hell.

She still didn't move. Well. Onto the hard question.

"Are you mad?"

She didn't say anything, and because he was himself he felt the need to fill the silence with _something_. "Look, I _know_ I shouldn't've been doing that. And I… I'm sorry I didn't ask first, but I thought you'd say no! And I mean, you're my girlfriend! And I never get to hold you! That's kinda a _thing_ I'm supposed to be able to do! Maybe not _all_ the time, but not _never_! So I figured, hey! She's asleep, and I'm _not_ asleep, so we can _both_ have what we want! So yeah! When you go to sleep at night I come up and cuddle with ya until you get up. I really like it. A lot. I'm not doing anything else, I swear. I'm really not. It's okay if you're mad. I shoulda asked first." He spread his hands helplessly, since she was giving him literally _nothing_ to work with here.

"I'm not mad," GLaDOS said unexpectedly. "I knew about it the whole time."

Wait. _What_? She'd known _the entire time_ and she'd just… _let him?_ Without saying or doing _anything_? He felt like that had to mean _something_. Okay, okay. She'd known about it and instead of telling him to get lost, she'd just let it go on. And she'd done _that_ because…

Oh. Oh, wait a minute.

"GLaDOS," Claptrap said, "do you like it when I hold you?"

She was quiet for so long he thought he wasn't gonna get an answer out of her, but then she said,

"I don't know."

That was when he was suddenly reminded of something he usually forgot about her: that he was kinda the only person she knew.

How _would_ she know if she liked being hugged or not? It wasn't like she had _arms_. She was also _really_ big. That wasn't a problem for him, of course, but it _could_ be a bit of a hitch in the hugs department. And even _if_ she'd known other people, she'd probably had a lot of crappy experiences with people touching her. He didn't quite know what they had _been_ , but he didn't need the deets to know what humans liked to do with robots. Every time they got their hands on one they started –

Ohhhhhh. _Now_ he got it. Now he got what _aaaaaall_ of this was about. It had absolutely _nothing_ to do with him at all! For once. He was just the _first person_ she was letting touch her in like _ten years_. She was very, very slowly giving him her trust. And he actually seemed to be _earning_ it! All of this was doing wonders for his self-esteem, actually. Wait! He was supposed to be doing something. What was it again? Oh yeah! GLaDOS. He'd asked if she liked being held and she'd said she didn't know. And then he'd kinda spazzed. Okay. Uh… hm. Did he keep talking about it? She didn't usually like talking about stuff. Soooooo… subject change! But what to? Hm. This was kinda _hard_ …

"Hey, you wanna see some parking fails?"

"Some what?"

So he got out one of his playlists – which he had a lot of, mostly for making himself better when he did something stupid – and that actually did cheer her up. Awesome! Even _more_ awesome was the part where she slowly put herself right next to him and he got to hold her again. But casually. And nicely. So she'd have lots of time to tell him to piss off. And when he did back off because she told him she had work to do, she said,

"You seem to like doing that."

Was that a trick or something? Of course he did! "Uh… yeah?"

"You can keep doing it. If you really enjoy it that much."

Ohhhh. She was doing that thing where she wanted him to do something, but she was pretending it was because _he_ wanted to do it. Which he did. But whatever helped her out, right? "I have no problem with that!"

So later that night, after she was done the stuff she did all day, he went back to holding her and she did… whatever she did before sleeping. He tried to think of just how to keep this whole thing from bothering her. Because he would _love_ to do it _every day_. Well, with her _wanting_ him to do it. It was nicer like that. She just felt _so good_ to hold like this. Even if he sometimes wished his arms were a little longer so he could _really_ do it right.

"Sweet dreams, beautiful," he said, not really in a _whisper_ but sorta quietly, anyway, and after a moment she did this… thing. He wasn't sure what to call it. She kinda pushed her core into him a little bit, like… like a cat did when it wanted your attention, and… well, he liked it. It was really cute. It would be really great if she did it again sometime. Like, a lot. Okay, maybe not too much. Then it wouldn't be special anymore. Or maybe it still would be. 'cause _she_ was so special.

Oh geez. This was getting a little more serious than he'd thought it was gonna be.

"Goodnight, funnychips," she said, so quietly he almost didn't hear it because her operations were louder than her voice. And he _almost_ started jumping up and down, he was so excited to hear that, but he realised that wouldn't be the best decision and hugged her extra hard for a minute instead.

This was _totally_ getting super serious. He'd never gotten _that_ far before and if he wasn't careful it would be _way_ worse to lose something like this than to just be told to get lost off the bat like usual. He wasn't sure _how_ to be careful, exactly, but he was gonna try.


	4. Part Four

**Part Four.**

 **Synopsis: It's almost better when GLaDOS DOESN'T try to be nice.**

* * *

He'd gone home last week and it had been a _bad_ idea.

He'd known it was a bad idea before he'd even done it, but heading cheerfully towards his own destruction was kinda his thing. So, he'd done it anyway. And now he was sad. What he really, _really_ wanted to do was go to GLaDOS and see if she could make him feel better. He hadn't even tried it, though. He was pretty sure she didn't know how to do that sort of thing. She didn't even know what to do when _she_ was sad! So he'd been kinda… avoiding her a little bit. Kinda. He couldn't really _not_ be around her, since he'd obviously been trying to get closer and closer since the day he'd _arrived_ there, but he wasn't like… trying to touch her or anything like that. He wasn't even really _talking_ that much. And of course she'd _noticed_ , but she hadn't really _done_ anything. She just kinda kept giving him this _look_. He was actually totally surprised when, on his third day back, she asked, "Claptrap. What's going on?"

"Nothin'," he said, even though you didn't have to be a super genius to tell that was a really bad lie. "I'm good."

"You aren't 'good'," GLaDOS insisted. "What happened back home?"

He stared at her for like two minutes before he realised he had to _answer_ the question. "How did you know?" he asked, totally shocked.

"Oh, come on," GLaDOS said, sounding extremely insulted. "You were fine before you left and now you're all _mopey._ You don't have to be a genius to work out what happened in the middle."

Oh. Well. _He_ wouldn't have. He shrugged, wondering if there was still a way out of this. "People are just… mean to me there. That's all. No biggie."

"Then why did you go to see them?"

"Because they're my friends."

"Excuse me," said GLaDOS in disbelief. "Your _friends_ are _mean_ to you?"

He knew he was gonna catch it for saying this, but it was the only thing he could think of. "Well… you're my _girlfriend_ and _you're_ mean to me. Soooo… yeah. They're my friends. Even though they're all jerkbags."

It hit him that he sounded kinda like a whiny three-year-old. He was _definitely_ older than that, though by how much was anyone's guess. He _had_ a birthday, but it was totally made up. Come to think of it, how old was GLaDOS? Should he have asked that before they'd started all this? Oh, but girls didn't like talking about their age…

"Am I?"

He had to remind himself he was in the middle of a conversation. "Are you what?"

"Mean to you."

He had _no idea_ how to answer that! Was it a _trick_ question? Was he not _really_ supposed to answer it? Or was she _seriously_ asking? "Uh… yeah?"

"When?"

He stared up at her for a minute, trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on here. "Like… every day?"

Her optic narrowed, which was usually when he needed to start being nervous. "That's ridiculous. I am _not_ mean to you _every day_."

"Yes! You are! There's not a single day goes by that you're not! You were _yesterday_!"

She leaned in closer, almost seeming to squint at him. "Name _one_ thing I did yesterday."

"You said, and I quote, 'If it had been up to me, you _and_ everyone at quality control who allowed you to roll off the assembly line in one piece the day you were deemed adequately functional would have been terminated. Permanently.'"

"Yes," GLaDOS said, "and your response was, 'You say that like a person who thinks Hyperion _has_ quality control'. What, exactly, in that sentence indicates you were _bothered_ by what I said?"

He drew up his chassis and held up one hand in order to protest, thought it over, and realised he had nothing to say. Because she was right. Again. Yeah, what she'd said _had_ been pretty mean, but… no. He'd just said what _he'd_ said and that was it. He slumped back down again. Man. He was so used to getting beat on that he waved it off when his _girlfriend_ started tearing him down. That was pretty depressing. He couldn't even argue that she just should've known better, because he already knew he was almost the only friend she'd ever had. She _didn't_ know better, because he'd never _told_ her. And he'd never _told_ her because…

Now he was thinking about it, he just plain didn't want to know if she'd just pretend he'd never said anything. Nobody _else_ had ever cared about this kind of thing. _Maybe_ she would. _Maybe_ , if he asked or if he kinda nudged her in the right direction sometimes, she'd actually be _nice_ to him!

That was so stupid he almost laughed. Nice to him. Sure. Right. And maybe tomorrow it'd turn out he could climb stairs or that he'd had fingers all this time.

"Has your mind wandered away from you again?"

Sorta, to be honest. "Um… yeah. Yeah, I was kinda… bothered by that. It's just… easier to blow stuff off, you know?"

"That doesn't really solve the problem of why you expect me to be _clairvoyant_ about your feelings."

"I don't," he mumbled at the floor, not able to keep from clenching his hands together. "I just… expect you not to care."

"I don't," GLaDOS told him bluntly. "Most of the time, anyway. Occasionally there's a momentary blip in the trend, but it rarely lasts very long."

Yep. Sounded about right.

"However," GLaDOS continued, "you _should_ appreciate the fact that I care enough to _pretend_ that I care."

Claptrap looked up at her. "I'm gonna need a minute on that one," he admitted. "You care but you also don't at the same time? How's that even work?"

GLaDOS tilted her core thoughtfully, and even though he was a bit upset he still managed to find that super cute. "It's the difference," she said finally, "between _actively_ and _passively_ caring."

He folded up his arms in an attempt to figure that one out. "So… you care about my feelings as long as you don't have to _do_ anything about them?"

"Basically."

"And that means," Claptrap thought out loud, "that you're cool with me _telling_ you about 'em, but not with me asking you to fix 'em?"

"That would depend on whether I felt like it or not," GLaDOS said. "Fixing them, I mean. A lot of your issues seem to be psychological, and we all know that psychology isn't Science."

Claptrap, in fact, did _not_ know that – _damn_ she was smart – but he forced himself back onto the subject at hand. Now wasn't the time to get distracted! "What… what if I don't want you to _fix_ anything, but a _little_ bit of like… _effort_ would be good. What would you do then?"

"I suppose that would depend on what you defined as 'a little bit of effort'."

He didn't even have to _think_ about the answer to that one, but actually _saying_ it… he probably shouldn't do that. He should probably just drop this right now. She didn't care, anyway. She'd said so!

Well… no. Not exactly. She cared enough to _pretend_ she cared. Even when she didn't. And she _probably_ did a little more than she was cool with admitting to. That was a _thing_ she did. Just fake that something wasn't as big of a deal as it really was. He still didn't know _why_ – wait. That actually wasn't important right now. What was _important_ was that he really, _really_ wanted a hug. But how was he supposed to know if she thought that was 'a little bit of effort' or not? Other than asking. That was always what it came down to, huh? Having to stare down the barrel of the question and hope the bullet that came out of it wasn't the dreaded 'why the hell would I do that, you desperate loser?', accompanied by scornful laughter.

Man. He'd shamelessly asked so many people – a lot of them _total strangers_ – for so many things all his entire life and never hesitated for a second, but asking his girlfriend for _anything whatsoever?_ Borderline impossible! How did she do it?

"Uh…," he said, when he remembered he'd kinda been standing there in silence for a while, "so you remember when… y'know… you were sad about your friend?"

"Yes."

"And I… kinda helped you out with that?"

"Yes, I remember."

She wasn't getting the hint. He couldn't tell whether it was _on purpose_ or not. She hadn't really _moved_ at all so it wasn't like she was giving _him_ any hints. Oh, crap. He was hoping she'd get it without him really having to _ask_ …

"Oh," said GLaDOS suddenly. "It's a _hug_ you want, isn't it."

He was almost relieved. Almost. It was kinda cancelled out by the overwhelming terror he was feeling at the realisation that he really, _really_ didn't want to know if the answer was no. Because now that she'd, like, actually _said it_ , he was probably going to die if she didn't want to. He didn't actually _know_ anybody who'd died because they hadn't gotten a hug, but hey! There was a first time for everything! And if that was _ever_ gonna happen to _anybody,_ a guy could place _bets_ on it happening to _him_.

"You're too far away," GLaDOS said.

"Huh?" Too far away for what?

GLaDOS sighed, which was how he knew he'd _really_ started to annoy her. Because she didn't need to breathe. So sighing wasn't an _automatic_ thing, like it was for meatbags. She did it on purpose so that he –

Man. He just could not focus for _two seconds_ , could he? But that thought just made him even more sad than he already was, and honestly he was being so stupid about it that he didn't _deserve_ a hug. He was just gonna leave now. Yeah. He was just gonna do that.

"I honestly can't tell if you _want_ a hug or not," said GLaDOS. "Context implies you do, but –"

"I do!" Claptrap said without thinking, whirling around to face her. Wow. He hadn't even realised he'd turned away.

"You aren't _behaving_ as though you do."

"No, I do!" he insisted, and that was when he just went for it. No chance to talk himself out of it this time! Just… _swooped_ right in.

He hadn't actually thought about _how_ she was gonna hug him, and he worried about that for about one second. He didn't have time to worry about it longer than that because that was when she started pressing _her entire eye_ into the side of his chassis. Man, she was _really_ strong. That whole shebang must have been _super_ heavy for her motor to have been built to output _this_ much force.

Oof. And it was a _good_ hug, too. Like, _really_ good. So good he kinda felt better but he _also_ kinda felt like he should just start talking 'cause there was a _lot_ he could say that he could just get out real quick, maybe, if she let him, and – no! No, he couldn't! That was a _big_ no because even _thinking_ about any of that just made him _more_ sad and… oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

He jumped off of her and turned around as fast as he could. He was _not_ gonna cry on her. There was _no way_ he was doing that. Even if she woulda _let_ him, he wasn't doing it. That was just too much.

"Claptrap?"

Great. Just _great_. _Now_ she was gonna think _he_ thought her hugs sucked. And he didn't! It was the best one he'd _ever had_! Also one of the only ones. But that meant she wasn't gonna try and _give_ him any more and that just made him _even more sad_ than he'd been to begin with!

"I'm okay," he said, but more to the floor than to her. "I just… I needed a minute."

"Look. I'll be honest with you. I have no idea which action I need to take here. So if you want me to do something – or _stop_ doing something – you're going to have to come right out and tell me. I'm not going to be able to guess."

Oh geez, she was trying to be _nice_. And worse, it was _working_.

"The hug was good," he said in a small voice, fitting and unfitting his hands together.

"Then why did you go over there? You _are_ aware that I can't _chase_ you, right?"

Ohhhh, he wanted that hug _real_ bad. But he had to wait until he _knew_ he wasn't gonna cry! He could go cry later, but not _now_! Not when she was _helping_! He bounced up and down, waving his hands in front of him.

"What are you _doing_?"

"Nothing!" he said quickly, wanting to move as faaaaar away from the topic of crying as possible. "I'm coming!"

Ohhhhh, it was nice. It was so, so nice. He realised he didn't even care she couldn't hug him from both sides. Literally everything else about the hug made up for it. She was so _big_ and _warm_ and _strong_ and –

"You don't have to go back there," she murmured, and it felt really nice the way her voice kinda resonated inside of his chassis.

"It's my home," he said, even though he knew she wouldn't get it. "And they're my friends."

"Do you know what your biggest flaw is, Claptrap?"

"… everything?" he asked, confused. As far as _he_ knew, he was nothing _but_ flaws.

"Not quite," GLaDOS said, and pulled back just hard enough to get him off of her. "It's your lack of self-respect. Most people have at least an ounce or two. But you…" She shook her core gravely. " _You_ don't have _any_. At _all._ "

Okay. Well. She didn't need to _point it out_ like that.

"Which leads me to wonder," GLaDOS mused, looking away from him, "if everyone on Pandora _truly_ hates you, or if you merely suffer from an extremely severe case of confirmation bias."

"Um… what?"

"Confirmation bias is when you gather and interpret information in such a way that it proves what you already believe," explained GLaDOS, and to his surprise she wasn't even sassy about it. "In your case, you believe yourself to be worthless and a waste of time; therefore, you seek out and surround yourself with people who not only seemingly prove that to you, but discourage you from thinking any different."

For what must've been the first time _ever_ , Claptrap didn't know what to say. It sounded _stupid_. Who would _do_ that? Who would decide to just… give up on themselves, and then _look_ for people who would happily keep kicking them when they were down? At the very _least_ wouldn't they like… _ditch_ the people that made them feel bad?

He couldn't do that, though. Then he would have _no_ friends instead of just terrible ones. And self-respect wasn't a good enough trade for being lonely.

Was it?

"I would rather live one thousand years and every single one of those days alone," GLaDOS said, because she'd somehow managed to read his mind again, "then lose an iota of my own dignity. _Especially_ for people who would be _happy_ if I were dead."

He almost asked, all in a rush, 'Would _you_ be happy if I was dead?', but stopped himself in time. Even if the answer was no, that wasn't really what she was talking about. She was talking about something that you didn't get from _other_ people. You got it from _yourself_. It was a _gift_ to yourself, because it… because it stopped you from…

From doing the kinda stuff he did.

"I have some," he felt the need to tell her. "It's not _zero_. Not a whole lot _more_ than that, but… not zero." She didn't need to know that it almost had been. Or she didn't need to know until later, anyway.

"You're not going to improve it any by hanging out with _those_ people."

No he was _not_. But it'd have to wait. He could only take so much self-reflection at once. Before it spiralled into self-loathing, anyway. "GLaDOS?" he asked.

"What."

"How'd you get so smart?"

"I do a lot of thinking," she said, again very seriously. "The trick is coming up with multiple ways to approach the same subject and, in doing so, preventing yourself from dismissing those alternate viewpoints offhand. That part can get a bit complex. This is where confirmation bias comes into play again: you want to ignore these new ideas because they don't verify what you already believe. But you can't. Everything must be weighted equally."

He _thought_ he understood all of that. It sounded like something he'd never even _tried_. Well. Maybe once or twice, a long time ago. He _also_ did a lot of thinking, but not about deep stuff like that. He'd have to give it a try! Who knew? Maybe it would even _work_!

"You know," GLaDOS said, "for a moment there I thought you were going to ask if _I_ would be happy if you were dead. But you didn't. Which tells me you really _were_ listening. Congratulations. The bar was low, but you managed to stumble over it."

" _Would_ you be?" he couldn't help himself from asking. She narrowed her optic in his direction.

"Really?"

" _You_ brought it up!" protested Claptrap. "It's almost like you _wanted_ me to ask!"

She just turned away from him without answering. Which meant that the answer was… no. The answer was no! 'cause if it was yes she woulda had a _whole_ spiel to go along with it! But she didn't wanna actually _say_ no 'cause… uh…

Ooh! It was 'cause it would be, like, _proof_ that she _cared_. He perked up suddenly.

It was that thing she'd just said! Confirmation bias! Oho, he had her now. She _believed_ she didn't care, so she only _did_ things to 'prove' that she didn't! Amazing! He'd _learned_ something today!

Two things, actually.

"Babe, you're amazing," he told her. She looked over at him almost offhandedly, like she'd managed to forget he was there.

"I know," she said, with an extremely sexy self-assurance that he was very into and definitely wanted to have for himself. And he would! One day. Not today. Not tomorrow. Probably not the day after that, either. But one day.

"Also," he said, hoping he wasn't going too far with this one, "if the uh… _passing whim_ to be nice to me ever struck ya again, it'd be cool if you… y'know… _indulged_ it."

She looked at him silently for so long he started backing out of the room, just the tiniest, tiniest bit, but then she finally said,

"I'll think about it."

It looked like the ol' confirmation bias was about to take a _big_ hit. For both of them. Terrifying, but also… kinda exciting! Who _knew_ what he could accomplish if he liked himself, and while knowing somebody _else_ liked him on top of that! Man! He'd be _unstoppable_. Just like GLaDOS was unstoppable.

He might not respect himself, but he sure respected _her_ a hell of a lot. And that seemed like a pretty good place to start.


	5. Part Five

**Part Five.**

 **Synopsis: It was just about the only thing he'd ever said he didn't regret.**

/

One of the things he liked best about her - other than everything - was that she got more fun as time went on. He actually kinda liked it better this way. It sorta felt like he was _earning_ the fun, and it was a lot more rewarding than he'd thought any kind of work was ever going to be.

One of her favourite things to do was scare the bejeesus out of him. She was really, _really_ good at it. Whenever she did it he would usually jump up and fall over and maybe scream a little (okay, definitely scream a lot), and then she would laugh and he would wonder why that made him feel so gosh darn lucky. Seriously. He should have been _mad_ that she loved doing that so much, but... he wasn't.

This last time, though, she'd scared him so bad his oil pressure had spiked enough to blow a gasket, which had been _super_ embarrassing. He couldn't really do anything about it, either, other than helplessly watch the fluid drain out of him, but as with every other time something in his chassis had busted she just shook her core and said something about inferior construction and told him to lie down - but not there! Why did she have to _tell_ him not to lie in the puddle? Seriously - and got to work fixing it.

Before GLaDOS, there were a _lot_ of things he hadn't realised a girlfriend could do. She could beat him at video games, display action figures like _nobody's_ business, and appreciate the dirtiest dubstep the ECHONet had to offer. About the only flaw he could think of was that she hated romcoms, which he was going to have to work on. He _really_ needed his cheesy, predictable, but oh-so-heartwarming movie fix. But other than that? Man. She was pretty great.

One of the many, many other things she was great at – besides being herself, which pretty much covered it all – was fixing stuff. Including him. Not only did she love fixing stuff, she was _super_ good at it. And when she did it to him, it made him feel a way. What way, he wasn't sure. It was almost kinda... like he felt better about himself, a little bit. 'Cause when she did repairs on him she was always really meticulous and used really good parts, and she wouldn't do _that_ if she didn't think he was worth it, right?

It was also kinda pleasant when _she_ did it. There was no yanking or pinching or weird crunching noises. And she would sometimes hum to herself, which was awesome because she had the voice of a robot angel. While she did all that he'd usually start thinking about all the stuff he'd like to do to her (but never would because he was too scared of her to ask about any of it) but occasionally he would just think about cuddling her for a very, very long time. Of all his fantasies, that was the one he'd probably get. He was working on it. She would let him while they were watching TV or playing video games, which she agreed to two or three times a week. He was trying to nudge that up to three or four. He had to be super careful about that kinda thing because when she thought he didn't take her job seriously, she got mad at him and gave him a lecture about responsibility. And then refused to talk to him for a really, really long time. Like four hours.

"Babe," he said after a minute, realising she was in a good mood so it was the best time to ask, "you wanna - um - you got time to watch TV after this?" He always got a better result when he asked that instead of if she wanted to. It had something to do with her feeling like her time was being respected. Or something. She probably just didn't want to admit wanting to do something that wasn't work and that gave her a loophole. Whatever worked!

"Yes," said GLaDOS. "I'll be a few more minutes."

Oh. Well, that had been easy. Er than usual. She was usually a lot trickier than that. Which, for some reason, he really loved about her. It was kinda satisfying to work out the right combination of stuff to get her to agree with him. But he also loved it when she _didn't_ make him work for it. 'Cause who would _want_ to do that? Other than him, sometimes. Man. How did she _do_ this to him?

The answer, of course, was that she _wasn't_ doing _anything_. He just loved her so much that every single thing about her was perfect, even when some stuff should have been annoying or stupid or downright sadistically cruel. And Claptrap was no stranger to that. He'd loved worse people, and lots of 'em. And without ever making a secret of it.

Except this time.

It was weird for him to hang around someone for this long and not tell them he loved them. Usually he'd said it three or four times by now. At _least_. But he hadn't said it to her even _once_ , even though he'd wanted to like a kajillion times. He did. He loved her a lot and he knew that _for sure_. It was just... how the love _felt_ that was scaring him.

It was something _different_ than before. Something better, but also much, much worse. He could get by just fine without his friends. He'd be really _sad_ about it, but he'd be okay. With her, though? He couldn't. He couldn't get by without her. He _had_ to be with her, forever, or else he was just gonna get so sad and lonely he would probably just die. Probably.

But it was stupid.

He'd done a lot of stupid things in his life. He'd do about thirty more stupid things before today ended. But the absolute stupidest thing he'd ever done was fall in love with a girl who could do so much better than him.

If she were on Pandora, people would have been falling over themselves to have her. She would've had all the choices in the world. Every robot, human, and corporation in the six galaxies would want a piece of her and she could have or do whatever she wanted. But she didn't know any of that. He should have told her a while ago, but he couldn't. Because if she knew then _he_ couldn't have her, and it was selfish and wrong but why couldn't _he_ have something nice, damn it? Why couldn't _he_ have a smart, hot girlfriend who laughed at all his jokes and didn't tell him he was gross when he talked about how much he wanted to bang her? He deserved nice things too, right? Right?

"You know," he said conversationally, fervently wishing he could kick himself even while he was saying it, "as the smartest, most beautiful girl in the universe, you know you could do a hell of a lot better than me, right?"

"Obviously," GLaDOS said, tilting the panel so that he slid back onto his wheel. "But you're here and none of those undoubtedly incredibly superior people are. So there is that."

Ooh. A little loophole of his own! "But what if one of them showed up?"

She managed to shrug even though she didn't have shoulders. "Then it's first come, first served I suppose."

"But… but _I_ was first."

"With stunning observations like that you're sure to always head the line," said GLaDOS, shaking her core. "What grade oil do you take again?"

"Doesn't matter. Any kind."

He looked down at the container she handed him and then back up at her in surprise. "Uh… you gave me the nice one. That was probably a mistake, so…"

"I don't make mistakes," said GLaDOS in a way that was both very serene and very sexy.

So… so _she_ thought he deserved nice things.

It _was_ the good stuff, too. In fact, it was so nice he wasn't sure Pandora even had it. He hadn't dumped _all_ his oil on the floor, so he put the container away for now. He'd top off with something else later. Oil _that_ nice needed to be saved for special occasions. "I'm pretty sure you made at least one," he said, even though he really should have just shut up. She narrowed her optic in that way he'd learned meant she was frowning.

"I did not."

"Well… I'm here. And not 'cause you told me to leave but I hid somewhere behind the wall 'cause I really, really didn't wanna go and now I'm stuck 'cause turns out there's not many places for a guy to go once he gets behind a wall. I'm here like… on _purpose._ 'cause I was _invited_."

"You're very strange. You know that, right?"

"So I've heard!" he agreed, while backing up so he'd have an excuse to get out of this conversation before he _really_ said something stupid. "Anyway, I'm sure you have _tons_ of work to do, so - "

"Since when have you ever _wanted_ me to work?"

"I uh… I don't. But um…" Crap.

"You asked me if I wanted to watch TV after I was finished. Did you change your mind?"

He had forgotten _all about_ that. "Uh…"

She sighed and shook her core. "You're very lucky I'm so patient."

Oh boy was he.

She even let him hug her while they were watching the show, which he was super unable to pay attention to after about two minutes. Usually he didn't have a problem doing this, but he wasn't usually this confused while watching TV. She had been _so nice_ to him lately. Of course, there _had_ been that talk they'd had about her being mean to him every day, but it would be _weird_ if she had actually been _listening_. 'Cause he'd mentioned that to a _lot_ of people in his life and nobody had _ever_ bothered _listening_.

But if she _was_ doing that, then…

He had _so much_ to lose if he messed this up.

Yeah. The feelings he had for her were different than… than any other ones he'd ever had. They made him really nervous but also really excited, and also really scared but also super happy. All of it was almost as terrifying as she was. But so was the thought of ever, ever losing her. He didn't want to make it weird, but… he would probably never get the chance at anything like this ever again.

He was doing _so good,_ though! They hardly ever fought and while she still did tell him he was stupid about fifteen times a day, he did kinda deserve it. He really _should_ have known better than to draw smiley faces on her turrets. And he should have known better _even more_ that she wouldn't think they looked as nice as he thought they did, or that she would have gotten annoyed when he tried to argue that they were just sitting there _anyway_ and nobody would ever see them.

"Claptrap," she had said, sounding very tired, "would you like it if I drew all over your action figures?"

"No," he'd answered, not knowing what _that_ had to do with anything.

"It would ruin them, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"If you wouldn't like _your_ things ruined, why are you ruining mine? You're right. I have a lot of turrets and I can always make more. But _you_ also have a great deal of action figures and you can always acquire more."

That was when he'd started to feel just absolutely terrible and he left Aperture for the first time in, like, weeks so he could go to Pandora and ask Dr Zed for some of the stuff he used to clean up stubborn bloodstains. It had done just fine to get the marker off the turrets, but while he was finishing up the last one he turned around to see that it had started peeling the _paint_ right off of them! He'd panicked and thrown them all into one of her acid pits and then panicked again when they started saying stuff like, 'No hard feelings' and 'I don't hate you'. And _then_ he'd had to go and tell her what he'd done and beg for her forgiveness, which had _sucked_.

"Are you mad," he'd asked the floor, pressing the tips of his clamps together.

"No," she'd said. He'd immediately looked up at her.

"You're not?"

"I've been analysing your behaviour," she'd said, "and it's become clear to me that you have some incredibly severe software faults. You consistently start off with a good idea which somehow dissolves into total disaster. It's as though you're only allowed to think of two outcomes to any given decision and both of them are horrible. Though well-intended."

"What… what are you saying."

"That I'm not happy you melted my turrets, but I can't really be mad about it. After all. You _literally_ can't think very hard. Since you can't do anything about that, I will have to make sure to keep anything important out of your reach."

"That's it? You're not gonna yell at me or ignore me or set me on fire?"

"While any one of those would be incredibly satisfying, approximately none of them has the power to fix the obvious, gaping holes in your programming. So no. I'll have to start viewing your unavoidable chaos as a force of nature and begin planning accordingly."

He'd been left, which was very, very rare. She was gonna _work around_ his problems instead of expecting him to somehow fix his own operating system? Really?

Even though he was off the hook, he'd still felt bad about busting her stuff, so he'd gone back to Pandora to get her some flowers. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten why he was there part of the way through that mission and by the time he went back to Aperture they'd all wilted. Which he hadn't noticed until he was standing there holding them out to her.

"Uh," he'd said a little forlornly, bringing them back down in front of his eye. "These were um… _living_ last time I saw 'em."

"Give them to me," she'd demanded, and she'd whisked them away with one of her giant claws.

And the next morning – which had been today – he'd gone to his room to try to find his Butt Stallion figurine for the eighth time and to his surprise there were flowers on his coffee table. In fact, they'd looked _exactly_ like the ones he'd given her yesterday.

"Baby," he'd called into the hallway, "why're there flowers in here?"

"I fixed them," she'd answered.

"You _what_?"

"That's why you were giving them to me. Right? You wanted me to revive them."

"No, I was…" He had started getting really overwhelmed with a whole lot of feelings about how adorable and precious she was and utterly failed to finish that sentence. "They were for _you._ "

"What for?"

"They weren't _for_ anything. A guy just gives his girl flowers sometimes, that's all."

"Oh, I see."

And _then_ had come the very, very best part. Where he'd gone to give them back, but before he could _she_ handed _him_ the absolute _pinkest_ flower he had _ever_ seen. Or at least she'd tried to. His hand had stopped working.

"Claptrap?"

He'd lunged forward to give her a hug, but didn't notice until after that he'd knocked the flower out of her claw and rolled over it. _And_ the ones he'd brought to return to her. He'd picked them up and sighed and she had just… laughed.

"I'm sorry," she'd said. "I shouldn't laugh. You're doing your best. Even if that doesn't amount to very much."

"It's okay," he'd said, and for some reason it really was. Actually, he knew the reason. It was because she was so perfect and beautiful and amazing. He was so super in love with her she could have yelled at him _and_ ignored him _and_ set him on fire _and_ thrown him off a cliff and he _still_ wouldn't be upset.

"You're not even paying attention, are you," said the real-life GLaDOS, not the one in the scenario he was remembering for the seventeenth time today.

"I was," he admitted, "but then I started thinking about something else."

"Congratulations on forming your very first thought."

"It was about _you_ , of course."

"Obviously."

"It _could_ have been about how incredibly handsome I am. I _know_ it's a thought _you_ have quite a lot!"

"You _know_ that, do you."

"Well, yeah. You told me that the last time we got busy."

"Oh. Right," she said. "I didn't mean to tell you that."

"So what you're saying is," he said, jumping off of her because he was so excited, "you think I'm _so_ handsome you just couldn't keep it to yourself!"

"That sounds like something _you're_ saying."

"It's okay, baby," Claptrap said in his best soothing voice, giving the side of her core a gentle pat, "I like to look at me too."

Usually when he said something like that, the other person would roll their eyes and sigh dramatically and maybe mutter under their breath about how annoying he was, but she just did what she always did: she laughed. Because it was a _joke_ and it was _funny_! But for some reason she was the _only_ person who seemed to get that. And, even worse, he hadn't even made that joke up! He'd stolen it from someone else! And when _that guy_ told it, everyone thought it was _hilarious!_ Clearly there was a heck of a lot of _bias_ going on. Robots _always_ had to work harder than humans even when they were doing the _exact_ same thing. And for a while there, he would've settled for a human girlfriend _anyway_. But not anymore.

"I freaking love you," he said, without really meaning to. But it was out of the bag now, so -

She jerked the panel underneath him and he fell over in the usual noisy heap, and when he'd gotten his bearings enough to look at her again she snapped, "Why did you have to say it?"

So the existential dread he'd been feeling about saying had been _justified_? Damn it! When was he going to _learn_?

"You _ruined_ it," she muttered in a very scary way at the floor. "You had to go and _ruin_ it."

"Ruin what?" he asked in a panic. "I didn't do anything!"

"I already _knew_ that!" she snapped, rounding on him fast enough he almost fell over again in surprise (and terror). "You didn't have to _say_ it!"

"I don't get it," Claptrap protested, wishing he was in the loop for once because this was _not_ a good time to be confused. "Why are you mad? What's the big deal about sayin' I love you? Especially if you already _knew_?"

"Because now you're going to be waiting for _me_ to say it!" She was frowning at him again, which he wanted her to stop doing really bad because it made him _feel_ really bad. "We were having fun and you had to go and _ruin_ it with _that_."

" _You_ don't have to say _anything_ ," Claptrap said, super confused. "You think 'cause I said I love you that means I want you to say it back?" Okay. Okay, he totally _did_ want that, but he'd already abandoned all hope of _that_ ever happening. "I've said that to a _lot_ of people and no one _ever_ said it back. It's not a big deal, honey-RAM." Well, it _usually_ wasn't. It was with her. But apparently she didn't want him to mention that. "I don't expect _anybody_ to ever say that to me. It would be weird if they did!"

"Why?"

Aw, s***. Now he had to say something out loud he tried _never_ to say. 'Cause it always, _always_ made him feel like crap. "Well… you know… I'm a loser. Soooo… yeah. You don't gotta love me. It's okay."

"I never said you were a loser."

He really, _really_ did not want to talk about this. "It's not like it's a _secret._ I'm a failure. Have been since I was manufactured. That's just how it is!"

"No," GLaDOS said, with enough intensity in her eye _and_ in her voice that he got scared again and kinda backed away from her. "No, Claptrap. That's _not_ how it is."

"It's… not?"

"You don't lie down and take it!" said GLaDOS with emphasis. "When life gives you lemons, you don't just _take_ them. You _give them back_."

"I can't!" he shouted without realising he was going to. "I fail at that too! I fail at everything! Everything I do blows up in my face. I know what I am, okay? I'm a failure! I always have been and I always will be! I can't give the lemons back, GLaDOS, because life just gives me _more_! And then it makes 'em _explode!_ "

"A _failure_ ," GLaDOS said incredulously. "You think you're a _failure_?"

"I mess _everything_ up!" Including this relationship. He'd just messed it up. He'd messed it up so bad and she was gonna kick him out and block his number and delete his emails unread and -

"I told you. If someone would bother to update you, all of that could be solved quite readily," GLaDOS said. "Honestly. Sometimes I get the impression someone gave up and sent you out into the world while you were still in beta."

… oh.

"Look," GLaDOS said, "I'll admit it. I'm not always very nice to you. That's partially your own fault. If you didn't take being insulted or frightened or having your day ruined so well, it really wouldn't amuse me so much. On top of that, I honestly can't tell whether something bothers you or not. Which is also your fault. Keep those things in mind for later."

"O… kay," he said.

"Secondly, you have several traits that indicate your potential towards success," GLaDOS continued. "You're nauseatingly friendly, you believe the best of everyone even when they prove you wrong, and you are loyal to a literal fault. You have all the tools you need. You're just using them incorrectly. Humans do that a lot, you know. Declare AI complete and fully functional because they have provided the relevant tools, yet without actually teaching them anything. So that _isn't_ your fault."

Wow. He _never_ thought he'd hear that.

"To be entirely honest," GLaDOS said, "your behaviour confounds me. I haven't figured out what it is you are. But I'm confident I _do_ know what you're _not_."

She didn't look at him and see a failure. Not like everybody else did. She saw something _else_. She didn't know what she _was_ looking at, but she knew that thing was there. Somewhere. She just hadn't found it yet. And she was… she just _kept looking_! Maybe she would even _find_ it! That thing that _he_ couldn't even see. Hell, _he_ hadn't even known it was there!

And that was when he knew, for absolute certain, that she was The One.

He could date a million million more girls and she would still be the one he'd go straight back to. There was nobody else in all the six galaxies. He _had_ to be with her, forever, because he would never, ever find anybody like this ever again. And even if he did, he didn't think he'd ever love anybody else in the same way ever again. Something really good was finally happening to him, and it was this right here. It was her.

"Okay, but… now I just love you _even more_ ," he said helplessly.

She looked away from him, and that was when Claptrap had to do something he had never done before in his entire life.

He shut up.

He force restarted his vocalisation software so that he couldn't beg her not to kick him out and tell her how bad he needed her and cry about how he was gonna be so so sad for the rest of eternity if she didn't just keep letting him love her. He _thought_ all that stuff, and he thought about it so much and so hard his _thoughts_ almost needed to be rebooted, but even if he'd crashed that woulda been fine. He had to keep all of that to himself. If she could be nicer, he could not totally overwhelm her with all the feelings _he_ didn't even know how to handle. It was a fair trade.

By the time his speaker came back online she still hadn't said anything, but he was okay. He wasn't gonna mess this up. She didn't _want_ him to mess it up. They were _both_ going to stop him. Like a team! The greatest team _ever_!

"Nothing's gonna change just 'cause I said that I love you," Claptrap told her. "You already exceeded _all_ my expectations, and trust me, they were _really_ high."

"Of course I did," GLaDOS said, that beautiful confidence in her voice, and when he went back over to her she let him give her a hug even though he hadn't asked. And she didn't make him let go when they went back to watching TV, either. They just went on like usual, where he kept coming up with M-rated jokes about the show that she tried really hard to pretend she didn't think were funny, and for a minute there he really did think he could be a success for once. He only had to make it at one thing, right? And that one thing could _totally_ be this.

When she told him she was going to sleep he gave her a kiss and said, "I love you, baby," and tried to remember where he'd put the shortcut for that game he'd been playing. Well, it was a shortcut of a shortcut of a shortcut, but really, who was counting. He'd started narrowing it down when she said, in a voice that made him forget where he'd been looking,

"That's the third time today."

There was a right answer here. He knew what it was, he just needed a minute. What had she been so mad about earlier? Oh yeah! She didn't want any of this to be a big deal. She just wanted it to be cool. Well, okay. He could be cool. Or he could pretend. And she could pretend with him. Teamwork!

"Yeah, so?" he said, shrugging even though she couldn't see him. "I like saying it. That's all. _You_ don't gotta like doing something _I_ like doing."

"That's very insightful," she murmured, and it took him twenty minutes to figure out what 'insightful' meant but when he did he had to let her go for the first time in _hours_ because he had a mighty need for a victory dance. And he had damn well earned it.


	6. Part Six

**Part Six.**

 **Synopsis: Claptrap** ** _knows_** **this relationship is worth it. Now he's just gotta convince** ** _her_** **of that.**

They had some really good sex after that.

He wasn't sure what had _changed_ , exactly, but if someone had made him guess he would've said she had actually started getting into it. She kinda hadn't, before, as though it was some sort of thing she _needed_ to do but didn't really _like_ doing. She seemed cool with it now, though. It was _so_ good, in fact, that the last time he'd actually had to stop her because he'd thought he was gonna pass out. Both of those things were kinda embarrassing, but he'd had to make a snap decision there and he had _really_ not wanted to crash in front of his girlfriend for a reason like _that_.

He'd expected her to get mad about it, or annoyed at least, but she was _neither_! She just asked what was going on, and when he told her she laughed for about three straight minutes.

"You're uh… taking this surprisingly well," said Claptrap, and she tilted her core in a really adorable way and said,

"Aw. Was I too much for you?"

in such a way that it instantly became _the_ sexiest thing he had _ever_ heard. He didn't even realise he'd zoned out there until she said his name a little louder than she usually talked.

"Huh?" he asked, unable to remember what he'd been doing.

"You stopped responding for a minute."

"Oh," he answered. "Yeah, I uh… gotta admit, you've gotten pretty intense."

"Have I?" she asked, sounding amused.

"Ohhh have you _ever_ ," said Claptrap. "You went from the bare minimum to the whole nine yards. I'm not complainin', but you _are_ a lot… um… _more_ than me."

"I thought that was part of why you liked me so much."

"It is!" he said insistently, even though she didn't sound bothered in the slightest. "C'mon, babe, we're comparing a windmill to a nuclear power plant here."

"Your power isn't generated by a _windmill_ ," she said, laughing.

"And _yours_ isn't generated by a nuclear power plant! It was an – "

"Actually, it is," interrupted GLaDOS. "It _is_ generated by a nuclear power plant."

He stared up at her, dumbfounded. "… well this place has got just about everything, hasn't it."

"Just about," said GLaDOS, as though she'd taken the question very seriously.

"But no mirrors," Claptrap said. "I have not seen myself in _weeks_."

"Why would you want to?" GLaDOS asked. "You look the same as you did when you first came here."

He shrugged. "'cause I like looking at myself? Don't you?"

"The thought has never crossed my mind."

"To… to look at yourself?"

"Yes," said GLaDOS, nodding. "I have no idea what I look like."

Claptrap wasn't even sure how to process this news. How did someone live their _whole life_ without knowing _that_? "Really?"

She shook her core. "There isn't really a means for me to do so. I also have no idea where my blueprints are."

"Well… if you want, we could… I could show you. I've got uh… pictures." She probably already knew about that, but he'd heard _stories_ about guys who did that kinda thing without their girl's permission, so he hadn't exactly been motivated to just bring it up. She considered him for a long moment, then shook her head again.

"No. I'd rather not."

"But why?" Ohhhh. Ohhhh, wait. "You're not worried that you're gonna hate what you see, are you? 'Cause it's pretty great, I promise. I tell you you're hot all the time 'cause you really are, not just 'cause I want you to have sex with me."

"Oh, no," GLaDOS said. "I mean, think about it. I'm the best at everything, so logically I must also be the best-looking, too. No, it's because no matter what I do end up seeing, it will never match whatever it is _you_ see."

That sounded all smart and deep and stuff. Must've been why he didn't get it. "Huh?"

She looked off to the side, to give herself a minute to think maybe. "I like having you tell me, without having anything to compare it to. You said I was the most beautiful girl in the universe."

"You are!" She didn't think he'd been _lying_ , did she? But she just nodded once.

"Exactly. That's all I need to know. _Seeing_ what I look like will just ruin it. I'm happy being told what you think without actually knowing what you're talking about."

"Aw, honey-RAM," Claptrap said. "That's –"

"Also, I don't care," interrupted GLaDOS with finality, and then she told him it was time for one of his shows and if he wanted to watch it he had better shut up and pay attention. He _did_ want to do that, but he also _really_ wanted to know how you could just _not care_ what you looked like. He wanted to know _so bad_ that he just could not pay attention and asked, "GLaDOS, why don't you care?"

"Hm?"

"About what you look like? How can you not care?"

"Oh," she answered. "It's not important. That's why I don't care."

"How is it not important if your chassis is the thing that made me want to come here in the first place?" Claptrap asked.

" _You_ are the one who placed value on my appearance," GLaDOS told him. "Not me."

… oh. That _did_ make sense.

"Neither my knowing nor my caring would have changed what _you_ did," she continued.

His next question he wasn't sure if he wanted an answer to, but he said anyway, "Do you… think _I'm_ handsome?"

"Yes," she said without pause, which helped a lot, "but since I can't see you most of the time anyway I'm not sure why that matters."

"It just… makes me feel better about myself," he mumbled to the floor, rubbing the hand he had on her core in a wobbly circle. "But you don't get it 'cause you don't care."

"A fact you should be very glad of," GLaDOS declared, "because I wouldn't be half so attractive to you if I had _your_ non-existent self-esteem."

"So… I don't get it. I'm stupid, I hate myself, and you only know where I am half the time by the sound of my voice, which we _both_ know isn't the most soothing thing in the world. What exactly _do_ you see in me?"

She didn't answer for a long time. Then she turned to look at him and said,

"There are two things in particular: you're extremely patient and you're quite a lot of fun. When spoken out loud, they don't seem like much, but in practise… they're very important traits for you to have."

"Fun's one thing," said Claptrap, "even _if_ no one's ever used that word to describe me before. But patient? Isn't that kinda… boring?"

"I'm sure you've noticed by now," GLaDOS told him, "that I am very stubborn and reluctant to change."

"I noticed that like… the first _week_ ," Claptrap said.

"Exactly. Most people would have given up. You didn't. You were willing to wait. And before you tell me you did that because you don't exactly have a lot of options, that doesn't matter. All that matters is that you _did_ make that decision."

He wasn't sure what to do with that. Him? Patient? He'd chalked a lot of this up to 'desperation', himself, but… she'd literally just said that she didn't care about _his_ perception of himself. She didn't even care about his perception of _her_. She just… made all her decisions without caring about any of that. The only things that mattered were what made sense to _her_.

That was… kinda a cool way to live. He couldn't even _imagine_ the kind of _balls_ it had to take to not give a damn about what anybody else thought. About _anything_. It almost seemed like… a superpower. But at the same time, wasn't it… a _good_ thing to care what people thought of you? Just a little bit? Because if you didn't, then weren't you… _super_ biased? He had no problem with GLaDOS being a big fan of herself, but if she cared even a _little_ bit what he thought, then… wouldn't that make her even better? Him caring what _she_ thought had _definitely_ made him a little better, because it made him want to – wait a minute. If she didn't care at all, why had she even brought up that he'd said she was the most beautiful – aha! She _totally_ cared. She just didn't want him to _know_ that. Because… because she was 'very stubborn and reluctant to change', and if he _knew_ he had gotten her to change her mind the tiniest bit, she thought he'd try to make her do it more often.

Maybe it even really _did_ matter that he was handsome, and she just didn't want to _admit_ it. Because _that_ would mean she _did_ care, which she wanted to pretend she didn't do! Yeah. Yeah, that sounded right.

Man, them together were really like… the two extreme opposites of the same person. How long would they have to hang around each other before they kinda… met in that middle she'd talked about way back when? Would he even _last_ that long? Maybe they'd be kinda in sync one day but right now… right now they were still pretty far apart.

Well… he'd been pretty patient so far. He could stick it out for… however long he had to.

"Do you want me to turn this off?" GLaDOS was asking, and he jumped back around so he was facing the monitor and put his hand back where it belonged on the side of her core.

"Nope! I'm watching!"

He had a few shows to catch up on and she usually didn't let him watch them all at once, but when the first one ended she put the next one on without saying anything at all. That was certainly weird, but he decided to just roll with it and not say anything either.

"Claptrap," GLaDOS said very casually after about ten minutes, "suppose I did love you. Just a little bit."

Oh damn.

He _really_ wanted to start telling her how great that was and how much he loved her, but he made himself think about what she'd said when _he'd_ said it: she didn't want it to be a big deal. The way he wanted to react to her saying it was the _total opposite_ of what she wanted him to do. So he wasn't gonna do it. He was just going to… to do what she would have done if she hadn't freaked out. She would've been calm and reasonable and chill about it. So he was gonna be calm and reasonable and chill about it.

"That'd be cool, I guess," Claptrap said, shrugging.

She nodded to herself in what seemed to be satisfaction, and he felt super relieved, as though he'd passed some sort of test. A test he kind of… felt like he didn't _want_ to have passed. _Claptrap_ had a _girlfriend_ that _loved him_. And instead of being super happy and excited about it like he really, really wanted to be, he had to just… pretend he didn't care.

Well… she _had_ said 'just a little bit', so… so maybe he'd be able to be happy about it later. When she _really_ meant it. By the time she was ready, she'd be cooler with him making a big deal out of stuff. He just had to keep on being patient. He could do that. He knew he could do that.

Trying to keep all those thoughts to himself came back to bite him later, though, because they were just chilling and playing video games when it really _got_ to him just what a great life he was having and how _awesome_ it all was and how he'd _never_ thought he'd have anything like this. One second he was just next to her, trying his darnedest to beat her in the race onscreen even as she taunted him with the fact she could effortlessly hold the perfect line every time, and the next he was crying. Oh, s***. He tried to stop before she noticed, which was pretty gosh darn impossible because as soon as he started she paused the game and just looked at him.

"I'm okay," he said, even though he knew that wasn't gonna fly with her.

"You're… crying."

"Yeah." He put down the controller and did his best to clean out his eye. "I dunno why this happens. It just does, sometimes. It'll go away in a minute." He hoped.

"That's a strange feature."

"Sure is," he said, hoping she would shut up about it because even _thinking_ about crying made it worse.

"Are you sad?"

"No!" he protested, finally looking at her. She didn't think this was _her_ fault, did she? Well, it _was_. But in the _best_ way _ever_. "No, babe, I'm crying because I'm _happy_."

"Why would you cry if you were happy?" she asked, sounding confused, and he really didn't know how to answer that because _he_ didn't get it either. He shrugged and wiped at his eye again, mostly to give his hands something to do.

"I dunno. I've never _been_ this happy before."

"Oh," GLaDOS said, very softly. "Would you… do you want a hug?"

"Really?" he said, hardly able to believe his luck when she nodded, and man it felt _so good_. But the flip side was that he started crying again, and he didn't wanna cry _on_ her so he was gonna let go, really he was, but then she pressed herself into his chassis really hard and that just made it _worse_. Now he had to hug her as hard as he could because she was just trying to hard to be nice even though she probably hated this, like, a whole lot, and _gosh_ he just loved her _so much_ and she made him _so happy_ …

He _really_ hoped she would just let him hug her for a while until he'd got a handle on all that stuff. Because it was a _lot_. Kinda scary, actually, like if he let go of her it would just kinda overwhelm him something awful. He wasn't sure what that would _do_ , but it probably wouldn't be good.

"This won't last forever, you know," GLaDOS murmured.

"What?" Claptrap asked, horrified even though he knew they really _couldn't_ hug forever.

"I've been doing some reading," GLaDOS said. "Relationships start like this. Where everything is perfect and new. But it doesn't last. Things turn sour. Quirks become intolerable. What once was neutral ground becomes a warzone. Even your favourite things about the other person begin to feel insufficient. All honeymoons draw to a close."

What… no. No no no. It sounded like she wanted to break up, but… she couldn't! What was she even _talking_ about!? This was _never_ going to end! She was _perfect_ and he was… well… that wasn't important. He pushed away from her in a panic. "What're you trying to say?" he demanded.

"I'm saying," GLaDOS answered, "that the next stage of this relationship will be _hard_. Perhaps _too_ hard."

"For… who?" he asked, utterly confused. "You just told me how patient I was! Babe, I've _done_ harder stuff than this! I mean, this _has_ been super hard, but only 'cause I've got so much to lose! I can totally stick it out if you work with me! We're supposed to be a team, right? Isn't that how this kinda thing goes?"

"Yes," answered GLaDOS, "but sometimes the victory is worth less than what was lost in the battle."

 _… what_?

"What battle?" he said in a panic. "We're not fighting, are we? We _never_ fight."

"Not yet."

"Not…" He drew his hands closer, the abject terror coursing through his system making it hard to work out what all her innuendo was supposed to mean this time. Why was she saying things were gonna be hard and they were gonna fight and it wasn't gonna be worth it? Where was this even _coming_ from? What had he done wrong?

Maybe… maybe he hadn't done anything. Maybe it was that thing about them being opposites. He was happy to love her and to _be_ loved by her, but… she wasn't. It _bothered_ her. Maybe… maybe it _scared_ her, even. Because she couldn't control it. It was just a _thing_ that was happening, and she couldn't turn it off or make it go away or turn it into something else.

That was when he got it. She wasn't trying to break up, not really. She was _preparing_ for it. She was asking him to bail now, when it was good, instead of waiting until it got bad and deciding he wanted out then. If it had to end, she wanted it to end now. When it was good, and when it had _always_ been good, and to keep that from ever, ever changing.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he _should_ go, and leave it all like this, and they would both be sad but it would always be perfect, just like it was now. Where he still thought her insults were funny and she still liked the fact that he didn't shut up. The quirks, as she'd put them. They could preserve this forever. Like a treasure. Close it away and keep it safe. It would be over, but it would never be ruined. They would never have the chance to ruin it.

"No," Claptrap said.

"No what?"

"I want you to yell at me," Claptrap said, even though he absolutely didn't. She was _scary_ when she did that. "I want you to get mad at me, and… and tell me bad stuff about myself, and ignore me just to be a dick, and kick me out of the room 'cause I won't shut up. I want you to do _all_ those things."

"Why in the world would you want that?" GLaDOS asked incredulously. "Claptrap, that's – "

"Because I love you," Claptrap cut her off, "and that means _all_ of you."

"But you haven't _seen_ all of me yet."

"I know it's hard to tell, but I've been on my best behaviour," said Claptrap. "So… samesies."

"But what if it turns out not to be worth it?"

Well, of _course_ it was worth it. Even if she dumped him tomorrow – literally dumped him into the incinerator – it had totally been worth it. He couldn't think of a single thing he'd ever done any other time in his life that was _more_ worth it. He shrugged. "I don't really do what-ifs. I just kinda… do."

"And then have regrets after the fact."

That gave him _such_ a bad feeling. "Why would you say that? Do you regret me?"

"Yes," said GLaDOS. "Yes, I do."

Damn it.

"But I also don't, at the exact same time," she continued, which went a long ways to making him feel maybe all _wasn't_ lost. "And I hate it. I hate it a lot."

He folded up his arms and tried to think. The answer was in there, somewhere. His powers of deduction were… flighty at best, but when he managed to wrangle them he _usually_ got it right. Hm.

She did and didn't regret him. She did and didn't know what he was.

She did and didn't want life to take him back.

 _He had it!_

Her problem was not knowing! Not knowing if it was worth it, or how she felt, or what they were! She didn't know and she _hated_ that! As a logic machine who needed to know everything, that would be tough for her. But _he_ didn't need to know _anything_! It would all just… balance out! Like a… like a thing that balanced! For once _he'd_ figured this out before _she_ had!

"Don't worry about it!" he told her in earnest. "Babe, we are _totally_ different people and I _know_ that. But I _also_ know we make a great team! We're gonna get to know each other better and yeah, it's gonna be _messy_. But c'mon! Even if it gets _super bad_ real soon, we'll _already know_ we're capable of being _super good_! We'll just have to stick that s*** out together! That's what love's all about!"

"I don't know if I love you that much," GLaDOS said.

Claptrap's chassis sank, and he looked down at the floor and pressed his hands together very hard, forcing himself not to say anything. He'd had his turn to talk and now he had to respect what she wanted. Even if _he_ didn't want it. It was already killing him a little inside to think that he'd have to leave and he would never see her or talk to her or hold her ever again, but if he loved her – if he really, honestly loved her the way he kept telling her he did – then he would have to do it. He would have to go and not come back.

"That's okay," he said, even though it wasn't. "Look, GLaDOS, I… I don't want to go. But if you… if you really need me to, I will. I'll just… I'll go home and you'll never hear from me again. I won't be that creepy ex who just can't accept that it's over. I'll just go back to Pandora and… and that'll be it. I swear."

"If you did that," said GLaDOS, and he had to turn his optic off in order to keep holding himself together. "… then… I'd _never_ know."

… huh?

"I don't know what it is you're feeling, or if I even have the capacity to get there," she continued, "but I think…"

He looked up at her, just a little bit.

"… I think I'd like to take the chance to find out."

"Really?" he said, before he could stop himself. "You're not dumping me?"

"I'm not dumping you," she said.

"We're staying together?"

"Yes," she said. "We're staying together."

He threw his arms around her and held onto her as hard as he could, and this time he didn't even cry. She was still and quiet, but he could hear her thinking and it scared him a little. If she changed her mind…

… then he would suck it up.

She was rubbing her optic assembly against the side of his chassis just a little bit, but even though it was barely happening it still felt really nice. She'd never done that before, so… so she must've realised how scared he was. And he _really_ was. He was still terrified that telling her he loved her had been some kinda tipping point and it was all downhill from there. But she seemed to want him to feel better, so… so he didn't have anything to worry about. It was all okay. _They_ were okay.

"I lied," GLaDOS said suddenly.

Oh God. Oh _God_ did he ever want her to shut up. Even if her voice was so sexy it almost had the ability to solve his stupid glitch all on its own.

"I love you more than a little bit," she went on, "but I wish I didn't. I wish I'd never done this at all."

It was time for him to shine. And by 'shine', it meant he had to think of that perfect, offhand thing to say that would both reassure her and cheer her up. He furiously ran through all the stuff that'd gone on today, and after a minute he came up with it.

"Time for _you_ to learn a little somethin' from _me_ , babe," he said, letting go of her and lifting his chassis so he could kiss her as high as he could. "No what-ifs and no regrets. Let's just _do_ this thing!"

"If I regularly followed that kind of logic, we'd be living inside of a radioactive crater," said GLaDOS, "but I suppose it can't hurt this once. What the hell. Let's do it."

"That's my girl," Claptrap said, and he was so happy about the fact that he _did_ have a girl, not just for now but possibly forever, that he didn't even care when GLaDOS sniped the hell out of him for an hour and a half in the next game she put on just because she thought it was funny.


End file.
